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Compared to the US and EU's established financial services regimes, Asia's regulators have largely been ignored by those beyond its borders. That began to change last year, when the region's supervisors begun asserting their extraterritorial authority. China's Ministry of Commerce (Mofcom) has attracted the most attention, delaying the merger between Glencore and Xstrata and recently blocking a three-way freight merger.

Deal counsel explain why the funding of a railway and highway across the Bosphorus gives Turkish project finance cause for optimism

Jeff Bullwinkel, Microsoft's director of legal for the Asia Pacific, explains why a complance benchmark would help assure firms that they can adopt the cloud without flouting the region’s maze of regulations

Oene Marseille Emir Nurmansyah Indonesia's House of Representatives has approved a draft government regulation on National Energy Policy (the Energy Draft), which sets out guidelines for the country's energy policy through to 2050. The passage of this long-term roadmap of Indonesia's energy policy is not without controversy and as of June 2014, the draft regulation has not been signed by the President. The Energy Draft 's target is for the nation's electricity capacity to more than double by 2025 to 115GW (as of end 2013, the installed capacity is 47GW). The capacity is envisioned to further increase to 430GW by 2050.

Pedro Cortés Marta Mourão Teixeira The Legislative Assembly of Macau is debating the proposal of a law on the prevention and repression of corruption in the context of external trade. The UN Convention Against Corruption, adopted on October 31 2003 in New York and ratified by the People's Republic of China (PRC) on January 13 2006 establishes, in its 16th article, that each State Party should adopt legislative and other measures to discipline acts of corruption by foreign public officials and officials of public international organisations, whether undertaken actively or passively.

Firms are facing hurdles in the race to tap the retail investor market. Debevoise & Plimpton’s Erica Berthou, Jordan Murray and Evan Neu analyse the challenges

Nobuaki Ito The Anti-monopoly Act of Japan was promulgated on December 13 2013 and is expected to come into force within 18 months (the specific date to be determined by way of cabinet order). The Act will abolish administrative appeal procedures by the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) for certain JFTC orders. In addition, a supplementary provision of the amended act provides that the government will, within one year of the promulgation date, consider changes to investigation procedures to preserve the rights of potential interested parties and maintain consistency with other administrative procedures, and will take appropriate measures as necessary in accordance with the discussions. In response to this, an advisory panel was set up and one of the main points for consideration is whether attorney-client privilege should be introduced for anti-monopoly procedures in Japan. In Japan, there is no attorney-client privilege in criminal or administrative investigation procedures. However, some assert that this should be granted in respect of anti-monopoly investigation procedures because: (i) companies providing information which involve communications with their attorneys in response to report orders from the JFTC may possibly be waiving attorney-client privilege that, with respect to these communications, would otherwise be recognised in foreign jurisdictions; and, (ii) granting attorney-client privilege to an extent similar to common law jurisdictions will not unduly hinder JFTC investigations and the JFTC can seek and collect relevant non-protected materials.

On May 23 2014, the Kenyan Parliament ratified the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) signed with Mauritius in 2012 so as to make it effective as of January 1 2015. Mauritius will bring the DTAA into effect on publication of a Gazette notice – this is expected to take place before January 1 2015.

Linklaters' Michael Bott and Ryan Ayrton analyse the new clauses that are helping bank syndicates navigate sanctions' impact complex financial instruments

Ecommerce in India is growing exponentially in several areas, including online travel services, retail, and other services such as taxis, education, hospitality, food and drink and even secretarial support. According to industry surveys, ecommerce could represent up to four percent of India's economy by 2020, compared to less than one percent now.